1833.] THE PUMA AS FOOD. 123 



vast numbers of cattle : the Indians hence called the place 

 Lalegraicavalca, meaning "the little white things." Dr. 

 Malcolmson, also, informs me that he witnessed in 1831 in 

 India, a hail-storm, which killed numbers of large birds, 

 and much injured the cattle. These hail-stones were flat, 

 and one was ten inches in circumference, and another 

 weighed two ounces. They ploughed up a gravel-walk 

 like musket-balls, and passed through glass - windows, 

 makinp: round holes, but not cracking thern. 



Having finished our dinner of hail-stricken meat, we 

 crossed the Sierra Tapalguen ; a low range of hills, a few 

 hundred feet in height, which commences at Cape Corrientes. 

 The rock in this part is pure quartz ; further eastward I 

 understand it is granitic. The hills are of a remarkable 

 form ; they consist of flat patches of table-land surrounded 

 by low perpendicular cliffs, like the outliers of a sedimentary 

 deposit. The hill which I ascended was very small, not 

 above a couple of hundred yards in diameter ; but I saw 

 others larger. One which goes by the name of the ** Corral, " 

 is said to be two or three miles in diameter, and encompassed 

 by perpendicular cliffs between thirty and forty feet high, 

 excepting at one spot, where the entrance lies. Falconer * 

 gives a curious account of the Indians driving troops of 

 wild horses into it, and then by guarding the entrance, 

 keeping them secure. I have never heard of any other 

 instance of table-land in a formation of quartz, and which, 

 in the hill I examined, had neither cleavage nor stratification. 

 I was told that the rock of the "Corral" was white, and 

 would strike fire. 



We did not reach the posta on the Rio Tapalguen till 

 after it was dark. At supper, from something which was 

 said, I was suddenly struck with horror at thinking that I 

 was eating one of the favourite dishes of the country, namely, 

 a half-formed calf, long before its proper time of birth. It 

 turned out to be puma ; the meat is very white, and 

 remarkably like veal in taste. Dr. Shaw was laughed at 

 for stating that " lie flesh of the lion is in great esteem, 

 having no small afiinity with veal, both in colour, taste, and 

 flavour." Such certainly is the case with the puma. The 

 <iauchos differ in their opinion, whether the jaguar Is good 

 ating, but are unanimous in saying that cat is excellent. 



September lyth. — We followed the course of the Ri • 

 Tapalguen, through a very fertile country, to the ninth 



* Falconer's " Patagonia," p. 70. 



